Publishing Firsts: The Historical Romance Genre
At the time of its publication in 1972, nothing like Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower had ever been published. More
Sounder
Newbery Award–winning book that became an influential children’s work on race and class. More
Profiles in Courage
Pulitzer Prize winner that helped propel the young senator to the White House. More
The Book of Negroes
A milestone in Canada’s understanding of black history and one of the bestselling books in Canadian publishing history. More
1972: Avon launches the historical romance genre…
Avon launches the historical romance genre when it publishes Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower, a historical romance with a strong female lead and sexual situations that go a step beyond the tame romances of earlier eras. More
Black Boy
A powerful and eloquent autobiography that has sold more than a million copies since publication. More
1895: Mark Twain signs an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers
Mark Twain signs an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, which serializes Joan of Arc in its periodicals and publishes it as a book one year later. More
1978: Harper & Row publishes Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series…
Harper & Row publishes the first book in Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series after it is serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle. The series highlights gay issues and becomes a cultural icon for generations of readers. More
1958: Collins publishes the first English translation of Doctor Zhivago…
Collins publishes the first English translation of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. More
Rita Williams-Garcia
My childhood reading helped to build me from the inside. More
A People’s History of the United States
Classic national bestseller that made a significant contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history. More
Social Change: Women Writers
In the mid-late 1800s, Harper & Brothers reprinted several milestone titles in the history of British feminist literature as well as the global canon, such as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), and Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), as well as George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872). More
1973: William Collins and Sons secures the rights to Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago…
William Collins and Sons secures the rights to Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, an eye-opening work that exposes in startling detail the horrors of the communist regime in Russia. More
1960: The Pulitzer Prize–winning To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is published…
J. B. Lippincott publishes the Pulitzer Prize–winning To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, one of the most influential books on race in America, which goes on to sell more than 40 million copies. More
Lawrence Hill
Writing is the one pursuit I have always pursued, and always known I was compelled to pursue. More
Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s masterpiece, and winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction. More
Letter to Eleanor Roosevelt regarding a new autobiographical book
Harper editor and chairman of the board Cass Canfield sent this letter, dated April 10, 1951, to Eleanor Roosevelt... More
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez drew on his childhood experiences in Colombia when crafting the story of the fictional Buendía family in the classic One Hundred Years of Solitude. More
1949: Harper & Brothers publishes the Pulitzer-Prize winning Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks…
Harper & Brothers publishes Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks, which wins the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and makes Brooks the first African American writer to receive the award. More
Collins Operations during WWII
Collins maintained combined office and warehouse space at Bridewell Place in London for many years, and in 1917, its new London publishing office at 48 Pall Mall was complemented by printing works in Mayfair that included a state-of-the-art bindery, warehouse, and distribution center. More
Social Change: Collins Gives Back
In the UK, William Collins II of Collins and Sons took up labor causes, especially child labor. More
1958: Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. selects Harper & Brothers to publish his memoir…
After leading the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and becoming the voice of the civil rights movement, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. selects Harper & Brothers to publish Stride Toward Freedom, his memoir about the Montgomery bus boycott. More
Amistad
HarperCollins’s Amistad Press is the oldest imprint devoted to titles for the African American market at any major New York publishing house. More
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
An American classic called “one of the books of the century” by the New York Public Library. More
Journey to Jo’burg
Groundbreaking book set in South Africa during the apartheid era and banned by its government. More
Letter from John Donovan submitting the manuscript for I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip.
In June 1968, author John Donovan wrote to Ursula Nordstrom, head of the U.S. Harper Children’s division, asking her to read the manuscript... More
Garth Williams, Illustrator
Garth Williams was a little-known but talented young illustrator when he was commissioned by Ursula Nordstrom, head of Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls, to illustrate the classic Stuart Little by E. B. White. More